Relations
Between Personality Structure and Psychopathology Among Belgian
Children

The
fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) specifies that diagnoses of
personality disorders should seldom be made before the age
of 18. However, many studies have demonstrated predictive
relations between childhood problems and subsequent adult
psychopathology, including personality disorders. To determine
whether maladaptive aspects of childhood personality structure
are concurrently associated with behavioral/emotional problems,
Belgian researchers constructed the Dimensional Personality
Symptom Item Pool (DIPSI; De Clercq et al., 2006). The item
pool was based on other personality measures and on instruments
for assessing DSM-IV versions of personality disorders. Factor
analytic procedures were used to derive hierarchical groupings
of personality characteristics. At the top of the hierarchy,
the most global groupings were designated as Internalizing
and Externalizing. These groupings subsumed more differentiated
groupings designated as Disagreeableness, Emotional Instability,
Compulsivity, and Introversion. The validity of DIPSI scales
as indices of maladaptive functioning was tested in terms
of correlations with scales scored from the CBCL completed
by mothers of 205 5- to 14-year-olds who were receiving mental
health services. Correlations of .77 between DIPSI and CBCL
Externalizing scores and .68 between DIPSI and CBCL Internalizing
scores indicated that both instruments assessed similar broad
patterns of problems. At the level of more differentiated
scales, correlations of .77 between DIPSI Disagreeableness
and CBCL Aggressive Behavior, .71 between DIPSI Emotional
Instability and CBCL Anxious/Depressed, and .62 between DIPSI
Introversion and CBCL Withdrawn indicated that the more differentiated
DIPSI scales assessed patterns captured by some of the CBCL
syndromes. The authors concluded that the four specific DIPSI
scales can be integrated into a two-dimensional Internalizing
and Externalizing structure corresponding to that of the CBCL
and also corresponding to findings of similar Internalizing
and Externalizing patterns in adult diagnoses.